A suicidal adolescent's sleeping beauty syndrome: cessation orientations toward dying, sleep, and drugs.
In a study of hospitalized suicidal youth, the account of a sixteen-year-old girl, diagnosed as schizophrenic, is analyzed to gain insight into a family's role in the suicidal career of an adolescent preoccupied with death and dying, sleep, and drugs; the interplay of her construction of reality with her risk-taking, self-injurious way of life; and her perceived problems of living and need for help. Her cessation orientations revealed a kind of Sleeping Beauty syndrome with fantasies on sleep, drugs, and death, including a death of the mind from overdosing. Such qualitative research on suicidal careers may increase our understanding of the at-risk adolescent population and assist in the development of a policy for identifying and meeting needs and following up on clues for prevention and early intervention.
Babow
I
I
California Polytechnic State University.
Rowe
R
R
D000293:Adolescent; D001293:Attitude to Death; D062787:Drug Overdose / Q000523:psychology*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012380:Role; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications*; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*